The sight of people hurriedly crisscrossing streets, hopping from one foot to the other and clutching their crotches could become a thing of the past.

A new app called Airpnp claims to have solved the age-old problem of needing to urinate at short notice by imitating the model of the better-known app Airbnb to connect people to facilities, sometimes for a small price.

For Airpnp, this means allowing toilet owners to advertise their toilets to people who might need to use a toilet, potentially solving a problem everyone can empathise with – especially those with children or elderly relatives.

So does it work? Yes, in the sense that the app is functional and displays bathrooms, some with pictures. No, in the sense that there seem to be very few bathrooms actually available for use.

There was nothing within a mile radius of the Guardian’s New York office, for example. (Our office does, thankfully, have bathrooms of its own.)

Airpnp: a feline might watch you pee. Photograph: Airpnp

Indeed, in New York City as a whole, there is only a grand total of 16 toilets available on Airpnp. Bladders can hardly breathe a sigh of relief just yet.

So far, at least in New York, Airpnp seems to function in many cases as a public service to advise people on where they can urinate for free.

“There is a restroom on the lower level, to the right behind where you come down the escalator. It’s moderately clean,” ryandpaul advised of a spot in the Flatiron district; the restroom was at a Home Depot. Jon G was another user posting a “$0” location: the bathrooms at Paragon Sports. Sweetpe184 continued the anarchic theme: Speedy’s has a “secret bathroom downstairs!” they advised. “Two stalls. Pretty clean.”

Haziq L, on the other hand, had a rather optimistically priced bathroom, at $1,000 per visit. “It’s a bathroom with a toilet, toilet paper, sink, and paper towels,” he bragged.

In Queens, Ramon Q advertised his bathroom – “Lil Ray Ray’s Humble Abode” – for a mere $1, but as so often is the case, there is a hidden cost attached. Here, it was potentially having to converse with Lil Ray Ray. “You are welcome to come use the bathroom and stay to chat. Refreshments provided.”

Airpnp – then just a website – was launched at last year’s Mardi Gras carnival in New Orleans. One of Airpnp’s founders, Max Gaudin, claimed in a blogpost that they ended up with 40 residences on offer for attendees: from “port-a-potties to marble-lined porcelain paradises”.

Co-founder Travis Laurendine told the New York Post that the app’s most popular cities were New Orleans and Antwerp. So far, there are 28 listed bathrooms in New Orleans and too many to count in Antwerp – but only six in the whole of the UK.

Interestingly, one of the toilets posted in New Orleans is advertised as “Jason Williams for City Council member-at-large”. It seems that for no cost, Big Easy visitors or residents may do as they wish in Williams’ “high quality” bathrooms. You do not necessarily even have to vote for him.